


what good is competition?

by palmcitrus



Series: every third echo [3]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Friends With Benefits, Hickeys, Kissing, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sharing a Bed, awkward times at work when everyone knows two of you fucked last night, these three are the weirdest flirts ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:14:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25907911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palmcitrus/pseuds/palmcitrus
Summary: It’s not like he hadn’t expected them to go home together. They really were the least subtle people on the face of the planet.However.It was all a bit pointed, wasn’t it. Martin bringing up the fact that they were both sleeping with Tim, and then Jon leaving a visible bruise on him just a few days later. Martin understood aclaimwhen he saw one.
Relationships: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist/Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood/Tim Stoker
Series: every third echo [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1810348
Comments: 23
Kudos: 283





	what good is competition?

The annoying thing—the _really fucking annoying thing_ —is that Tim is always right. 

He and Jon had spent all of Monday after that night out very obviously avoiding each other. Martin’s pretty sure they didn’t make eye contact once, and the few words they exchanged were short, uncomfortable, and strictly work-related. Martin would love to blame the way Tim had spent the day so obviously making fun of Jon for it, but honestly Jon had been practically vibrating with discomfort from the moment Martin arrived at work, before Tim even got there. 

Really, though, Tim’s presence surely hadn’t helped, especially once Martin caught on sometime around eleven that Tim’s prodding towards Jon was _flirting_. Then it just felt awkward to be third wheeling. 

“Sasha,” Martin had whined at lunch. Jon was working through the break and Tim was apparently stuck in line at some Chinese shop. “I know I definitely can’t say anything about it, but is there really any way in hell that they think they’re fooling anybody?”

“As hard as it is to believe, they honestly do,” she said. “When Tim first told me about him and Jon, he was shocked that I already knew, even though I had literally caught them with their faces _this_ close over the breakroom table two weeks before.”

“When was that?”

“I dunno. A couple months ago, maybe?”

Martin sighed. Seems like those two have had their thing going longer than he and Tim, then. 

Sasha squinted at him. “Hey, you’re not jealous, are you?”

He flushed a little. “W-why would I be? I mean,” he stammered. “It’s fine, none of my business of course, but it’s not like I have a problem—”

She sighed and shook her head. “I swear, I’m going to need to start recording this,” she said. “Our workplace has a better love triangle going than anything on Netflix lately. Can’t wait to sell the rights and not share any of my profit with you lot. It’ll be the least you can do, making me sit between all this tension all day.”

Martin had rolled his eyes. It wasn’t worth explaining that in order for it to be a proper love triangle, there needed to be some kind of romantic reciprocation, and whatever feelings Jon and Tim may have about him are not romantic, _obviously._ Wasn’t going to stop him from thinking about it, though.

  
  


And then—well. Tim had walked into work Tuesday morning with a dark bruise above his collarbone, and Jon had somehow managed to avoid his eyes even more determinedly than yesterday. 

It’s not like he hadn’t expected them to go home together. They really were the least subtle people on the face of the planet. 

However. 

It was all a bit pointed, wasn’t it. Martin bringing up the fact that they were both sleeping with Tim, and then Jon leaving a visible bruise on him just a few days later. Martin understood a _claim_ when he saw one. 

Well, that’s just not fair. Jon may have got to Tim first, but that doesn’t mean he’s the only one allowed to have him. 

He rocks back in his chair. God, what is he thinking? Does he really think Jon is _jealous_ of him about Tim? He knows that Tim and Jon have history, that they’ve been friends (and then some) since research. Martin’s the new kid on the block. He doesn’t expect to compete with that. 

He watches as Tim absentmindedly runs his finger over the bruise, back and forth as he frowns in concentration at a report. His thumb presses into it, reviving the ache.

Martin sighs. Despite his own logic, and his distinct disadvantage, he can’t pretend that there isn’t some stubborn part of him that still wants. 

  
  


Sometime around half-past eleven, when Martin looks up and catches Jon stealing a glance at Tim’s neck, he knows he’s going to do something stupid. 

The vague sense of self-pity he’d been wallowing in flips like an omelette into something sharper, something like competition, or maybe just conniption. 

At half past twelve, Jon gets up to leave for lunch, followed by Sasha a minute later. Martin, now alone, stands to leave—Tim had left for the bathroom a couple minutes ago. 

He bumps into him in the hallway as hoped.

“Oh, hi,” Tim says, his eyebrows lifting in surprise. “I was just about to get lunch.”

“Hi,” Martin says back. He places his arm around Tim, landing one hand on the small of his back, and starts walking. 

“Hey, wh—” Tim blinks as Martin firmly guides him into the custodial closet. He eyes Martin, looking faintly cautious. “Did you need something in here, or…?” 

Wordlessly, Martin crowds close against him, using his weight to pin him to the shelves of orange solvent, and kisses him. 

Tim makes a noise of surprise. After a moment, he melts, letting his tongue slip into Martin’s mouth and resting his hands on his shoulders. 

Martin hums contentedly. He means to stay silent and be assertive and demanding, but he can’t help but just indulge for a minute. Tim’s mouth, like the rest of him, really is a wonder. He’s soft and warm and earnest and just so easy to get lost in. Which Martin could, he really could—not that he normally lets himself dwell on that. 

“This is a bit cliché,” Tim says, panting a bit. “Sneaking off to snog in the janitor’s closet.”

“Quiet,” Martin replies. 

He slips his hands underneath Tim’s shirt, skimming his fingertips up his sides and over his ribs. At the same time, he drops his mouth down to Tim’s neck. 

Tim sighs, and Martin doesn’t need to look to know he’s got that open, pleased look on his face. It’s only once he sucks the skin into his mouth—hard—that Tim tenses and digs his fingers into Martin’s shoulder. 

“Martin, Martin, fuck—we’re at work, God, you can’t leave a ma— _ah—_ ”

Fortunately, this is not Martin’s first rodeo. Tim is wonderful in bed, he really is, but at times, his tendency to talk can be a bit much—no fault of his own, really, just hard to answer coherently when Tim’s had him on edge for an hour, or whatever—and so Martin is occasionally forced to resort to other measures to keep his mouth busy. 

He slides one hand up Tim’s torso, brushes over his jaw, then gently slides two fingers into his mouth. 

Predictably, Tim moans around them. Martin silently sings praises for Tim’s oral fixation, and continues his work on his neck blessedly free of protests. With his other hand, he grabs the wrist of the hand Tim is digging into his shoulder, and pins it against the wall. Tim moans again. 

Martin tries to keep as quiet as possible, both because he would rather not get caught by either of their coworkers returning early, and because he wants to maintain some sense of control. The feeling of Tim’s mouth sucking eagerly on his fingers is doing something for him, though—he wants to take him home, show him a good time, wants to hear the sounds Jon heard last night...

God, that again. Martin really needs to stop kidding himself—the tug of jealousy in his stomach isn’t just about Tim, of course it’s not. Ever since that night after the club he’s thought about it even more than usual, thought about the expression Jon had made when he slid his hand onto his knee. He’s thought about Jon kissing him like he couldn’t breathe without it. He had really been trying to ignore his thing for Jon for the past few weeks, and it had almost been working, until Jon had gone and touched his hair like that, had stared at him with those big gorgeous brown eyes. 

Tim whimpers. Martin pulls off of his neck with a soft pop noise. 

He smiles. On his neck, a few inches above the already-existing one, Tim has a brand-new hickey, dark and shiny with spit and very, very visible. 

He pulls his fingers out of Tim’s mouth and trails them down over it. “Whoops,” he says, with an air of innocence. 

Tim’s mind seems to catch up to the situation. He snaps out of his haze and a look of alarm crosses his face. “Martin!”

Martin grins and kisses him, briefly. “Damn. Hope someone’s got a spare scarf or something,” he says, and leaves Tim to bolt off to find a mirror. 

  
  


Jon gets back from lunch twenty minutes later. 

Tim has returned to his chair and is looking in anguish at his front phone camera. Sasha is cackling at him from her desk. Martin is sitting, typing, and trying to look casual. 

“This isn’t _funny,_ Sasha,” Tim whines. “Come on, don’t you have anything to help me—”

“Tim, I’m sorry, but I don’t know what to tell you,” she laughs. “I’m, like, at least three shades darker than you, and Martin doesn’t carry concealer, I’m assuming.”

“He fucking ought to, if he’s gonna be pulling shit like this,” Tim says, shooting a glare Martin’s way. 

Martin smiles angelically over his computer. “Sorry.”

“I bet you are.”

“Hey, maybe Jon has some,” Sasha says. “You and him are pretty close in skin tone.”

“I’m not fucking asking Jon, Sasha, the whole point is to hide it from him specifically—”

“Hide what from me?” Jon says, stepping inside, and Tim’s back stiffens in surprise. 

“Nothing!” He says. His hand shoots to his neck, covering the mark. 

Jon frowns. He’s holding a box of papers in his hand. “Okay, well, could you help me with this?”

A look of panic crosses Tim’s face, before he schools it into something more neutral and stands hesitantly. “Yeah, course. Um.”

He doesn’t drop the hand covering his neck until he has to, but the second he does, Martin watches as Jon’s eyes flicker down and widen. His face goes blank. 

Tim’s expression is one of profound mortification as he clutches the box. “Uh. Where d’you want this?”

Jon’s mouth opens and shuts a few times. For the first time in two days, he turns to look at Martin. 

Martin looks back, keeping his expression cool, but undoubtedly challenging. He quirks an eyebrow. 

“O-on my desk, please,” Jon says, turning away first. A sense of gratification rushes through Martin. 

  
  


Martin’s not sure when Tim caught on, but the earful he gets about it on the tube ride back to Martin’s flat is probably deserved. It is movie night, after all, love tr— _interpersonal drama_ or no. 

“Oh, what am I, you two’s fucking _corkboard,_ then? Sending memos in the form of hickeys? I look like a fucking octopus attacked me, look at my neck right now—”

“No—Tim, come on,” Martin laughs, cupping his cheek. “First of all, dramatic. Second, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to- to let you get caught up in the middle of my feelings. I’m sorry if I made you feel like I was using you to get at Jon, or something like that.”

“Oh, no, it’s _fine,_ it’s fine, I’ll just take up my new job as a very obscure type of messenger too, although Elias had better start compensating me for all the concealer I’m apparently going to need. Since you two have absolutely no courtesy.”

Martin searches Tim’s face. If he didn’t know him so well, he might not catch the hint of genuine insecurity and hurt under his dramatics, but he does. A tiny spike of guilt goes through him at the thought that he’s let his own scrambled jealousy get in the way of his deep, loyal pull to _be good to Tim._

“I—Tim,” Martin says, softer. “I promise I won’t do it again. And I really am sorry.”

The shadow of disquiet lifts off of Tim’s face. He rolls his eyes and finally lets out an exaggerated sigh, ruffling a hand through Martin’s hair. “You’re fine, Martin, honestly. I get it. Plus,” he jokes, “kinda hot being the center of all that jealous attention, honestly.”

“Oh, shove off,” Martin grumbles, and is quietly gratified to hear Tim laugh.

Later, when they’re lying in bed, their legs tangled together and Tim stroking his fingertips up and down Martin’s arm, Tim props himself up on one elbow. 

“Hey,” he says. “Can I ask you something?”

Martin glances up. “Mm?”

He takes a breath. “Do you...you have feelings for Jon, yeah? Like, real ones, not just one-night drunk-snogging ones?”

Martin‘s pulse rises imperceptibly. He knew this was coming, and he’s considered denying it, but his mind automatically recoils at the idea of lying to Tim. 

“I-I’m not sure,” he says. “It’s complicated.”

Tim nods for him to go on. Martin likes his earth-brown eyes. 

Martin sighs. “I mean, before, it was just a fantasy,” he says. “Like...crushing on my hot, unattainable boss just because it passed the time, you know? But then he kissed me that night, and I know he was just drunk but then it was like...it wasn’t just a fantasy anymore. Like, maybe he’s not so unattainable. Which I know he is, but that’s tricked my brain into, like, solidifying it into something real, I guess. You know what I mean?”

Tim lies back with a sigh. “I know.” Martin listens to him just think quietly for a moment. “Why don’t you tell him? I think it’s been made pretty clear he at least thinks you’re attractive.”

Well. There are a few reasons. _You,_ he wants to say. _I know you have feelings for him, and I know he’d be an idiot not to have feelings for you, and I can’t help myself from trying to keep things the same so I can keep you, even though I know I’m not the one you’re going to choose in the end._

Martin lies down next to him, echoing his wistful sigh. He decides on another truth. “It’s hard to get right,” he says. “I don’t wanna mess it up. I don’t want to say too much, and scare him off, but—I also don’t want to say too little and give him the wrong impression about what I want from him. With him.” He picks at the comforter. “I probably couldn’t do casual with him like you can.”

“I’m not as casual as you think,” Tim says, and then inhales sharply at his own words. 

Martin turns his head to face him. Tim is biting his lip, staring determinedly at the ceiling. 

Martin hesitates. “So you do have feelings for him?”

Tim looks at him. His eyes roam Martin’s face for a few seconds, staring like he’s searching for something. 

“It means I don’t want one of you at the expense of the other,” he says quietly. “I want...I want you both the same way. This isn’t—nothing.”

Martin stops himself from asking what _want_ means in this situation, and nods. He takes Tim’s hand. “You’re my best friend, you know that?”

Tim’s face does something unreadable, and settles on a small, earnest smile. “You’re my best friend, too. I mean, you and Sasha, I guess.”

Martin grins. “The things we put that poor woman through,” he says. “At least our antics are entertaining for her, I suppose. She thinks we’re her personal in-office gossip assembly line.”

“Aren’t we?”

“I don’t know, are we?”

Tim bumps him with his shoulder. “Well, if not, then what do you think we are?”

Martin looks at him, then rolls over briefly to turn out the light. He laces his fingers through Tim’s in the dark. 

“I think,” he says with a sleepy sigh, “that the three of us are quite the messy ordeal.”

**Author's Note:**

> well sorry it was like a month! I’m very bad at keeping a schedule pls leave comments and kudos if u enjoyed! 💕


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